Five things to watch

Here’s our regular day-before look at five things to watch for the Seahawks Sunday against Tampa Bay:

1, The battle in the trenches: Seattle wasn’t pleased with the play of either of its lines in Monday’s 14-9 win at St. Louis with the offense allowing seven sacks and the defense allowing 200 yards rushing — each season highs. Defensive players said the issues were largely overrunning plays and not being in the proper position, something that was an emphasis this week in practice. The offensive line, meanwhile, continues to play undermanned but has to get better play at the tackle spots, in particular. The Bucs, though, don’t offer the same kind of pass rushers as did the Rams.

2, Sherman and Revis: Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman and Tampa Bay cornerback Darrelle Revis had a well-publicized Twitter spat in the off-season about who is the better player. Given a chance to expand on that feud this week, though, each demurred, instead touting the abilities of the other. Still, you can bet each will want to put on a show Sunday, knowing that the other is watching. Revis says he is getting healthy after coming off a knee injury, and could play more man coverage Sunday than he has in other games this season. Watch for him to try to shadow Golden Tate, who will be counted on for even more production now that Sidney Rice is out.

3, Feeding the Beast: Nothing more aptly illustrated Seattle’s offensive woes last week than the eight carries for 23 yards of Marshawn Lynch, numbers that each were his lowest in more than two years. Lynch was limited in practice this week with a knee injury, as well. Still, foremost among Seattle’s goals Sunday will be to get the running game going, and especially Lynch, as the team begins the second half of the season. It was at this point a year ago that the running game really picked up — Lynch had 100 yards or more rushing in six of the last eight games in 2012.

4, Pressuring Glennon: Tampa Bay QB Mike Glennon will be making the fifth start of his career. His 181 passes in his first four games are an NFL record, and the Bucs said this week they need to take some pressure off of him by mounting more of a running attack. The Bucs have not been good at that all year anyway, though, averaging 93.6 per game (21st in NFL) and now are without leading rusher Doug Martin. So Glennon will no doubt be winging it around a lot, regardless. Seattle needs to get more consistent pressure on him than it did a week ago against Kellen Clemens in St. Louis. Seattle got three sacks in that game, but it felt like there were plenty of plays when Clemens had time to throw.

5, Starting fast: Seattle trailed 3-0 at the end of a first quarter against St. Louis, which set the tone for the game and continued a trend of slow starts for the Seahawks. Seattle has scored just 29 points in the first quarter this year, fewest by far of any quarter this season — Seattle has 56 in the second, 60 in the thir d and 57 in the fourth. The Seahawks obviously don’t want to let the Bucs hang around.